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Chocolate Milk Stout recipe suggestions

ashman

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Hello there, I'm relatively new to the homebrew scene but I've jumped right in.  I want to try a partial mash recipe as I don't quite have the necessary setup for an all-grain batch right now.  I'm looking to make a chocolate milk stout, with more than a hint of chocolate flavor and the lactose added. 

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking after doing some research, I didn't find a recipe that I liked so I compared several and came up with this.  Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Grains:

1 lb crystal malt 80-120
.75 lb chocolate malt
1 lb roasted barley
.25 lb black patent

Extracts:

7 lbs light lme (or dme, open to suggestions)

Hops:

1-2 oz cascade (open to suggestions here too, want an IBU between 20-30)

Extras:

1 lb lactose
6 oz chocolate bar, wanting to use 2 77% Chocolove bars (or cocoa powder)

Thinking a 60 minute boil with half the hops at boil and the other half as finishing, with the lactose and chocolate added between 30 and 15 left.  I want to slowly dissolve the chocolate so it doesn't burn on the bottom.  I also want it to be 6-7% ABV so I am also looking for some suggestions as to adjusting the extracts.  I also chose Chocolove because this is a favorite of my girlfriend who I am attempting this beer for, and also because it has a short list of ingredients, 4 to be exact.  As I said earlier, any suggestions would be appreciated!


 
A full pound of roasted barley may be a little strong. 

BS2 will calculate the OG, but you may need more DME to hit 6.5% ABV. 

I've never added chocolate before, but if you use bars, I'd use a micro zesting gadget to get it as fine as possible, and boil it for as little time as needed to dissolve it. 

I've heard of others using Hershey's or Giradelli powders which have less oil in them, which may be beneficial to head retention down the road.
 
How's this look then?

Grains:

1.5 lb crystal malt 120
.75 lb chocolate malt
.5 lb roasted barley
.25 lb black patent

Extracts:

8.5 lbs light lme (or dme, open to suggestions)

Hops:

1-2 oz cascade (open to suggestions here too, want an IBU between 20-30)

Extras:

1 lb lactose
6 oz chocolate bar, wanting to use 2 77% Chocolove bars (or cocoa powder)
 
I have used chocolate quite a bit.  I've tried cocoa powder, like that used in baking, and it never turned out well.  Also, you won't get much flavor from 6 ounces of chocolate in a 5 gallon batch.

What I have used that turns out well are hersheys special dark chocolate candy bars, tootsie rolls and Millstone Velvet Chocolate Coffee.

If you use the hersheys or the tootsie rolls you will get oils in your wort.  I add them during the last ten minutes of the boil.  I turn off the heat and stir them in until they are fully melted and can't get any chocolate on my stirring spoon.  This way I avoid scorching on the bottom of my boil kettle.  Treat them like a late addition of DME or LME.  Once they are fully incorporated, I turn the heat back on and bring the wort back to a boil.  I add my irish moss as soon as it comes back up to a boil and any late hop additions.  These give a sweet chocolate taste.  Yes, you'll have oils in your fermenter, so use a plastic bucket fermenter so that you can clean up!  I made the mistake of doing the primary fermentation in a carboy one time with the chocolate bars and it was a pain to get the oils cleaned out of that.  With a plastic bucket though, it's no big deal.

The Millstone brand velvet chocolate coffee has worked well for me too.  I just make a pot of it and pour it in with ten minutes left in the boil.  One pot of coffee seems to give me just the right amount of chocolate flavor.  This isn't as sweet of a flavor as the hersheys or tootsie rolls.  I made an RIS with the chocolate coffee that scored very high at a competition.

The hersheys or tootsie rolls will substantially boost your OG.  The chocolate coffee has no sugars, so won't boost your OG.  I typically use anywhere from three to five pounds of the hersheys or tootsie rolls in a 5 gallon batch.  When figuring out the starting gravity, I treat the hersheys and tootsie rolls like sucrose in my beersmith and it's seems to be quite accurate. 

I made a tootsie roll stout recently that is typically at about 11% without the tootsie rolls.  5 pounds of tootsie rolls boosted my ABV to 16.5%!  So, when using the chocolate candies, you can count on about a 1.1% boost in your ABV per pound of chocolate candies.  2 pounds will give a hint of chocolate in the background.  When you're trying to make the chocolate flavor the center of your flavor profile, 5 pounds seems to work well for me.  I've never used over 5 pounds, because I think it would be overwhelming.

A member of my homebrew club has used cocoa nibs with great success.  They seem to give a bitter chocolate flavor.

One note about the hersheys special dark chocolate and the tootsie rolls is that since they can substantially boost your OG (My tootsie roll OG was 1.142!), you have to have a great yeast starter and lots of it. 

This is what I do when my ABV is predicted to be above 12%.  I try to plan ahead and make dry stouts and porters using either Wyeast London Ale (1028) or Wyeast Scottish Ale (1728) in my previous batches so that I can harvest the yeasts from the primary for my big, big chocolate beers.  I time it so that I'm going from the primary to the secondary on two different batches using one of those two yeasts on a Saturday.  I harvest and rinse the yeast out of the primary and immediately get a huge starter going on that Saturday.  My goal is to have about 1/2 to 3/4 gallon of yeast slurry ready to pitch the following weekend.  I did this with my recent tootsie roll stout and it went to 16% ABV in four days.  My lag time was only about 2.5 hours.  Basically, use a lot of fresh healthy yeast that's already used to working.  Oh, and a LOT of aeration.

Good luck with your chocolate experiments.
 
http://byo.com/resources/grains

These descriptions may help you decide on amounts.  The C-120 says heavy caramel, so if that's not part of the profile you want........

It occurred to me also that these four grains are fully converted by their high-temp kilning schedule, so they are dead (no enzymes) and do not need to be mashed at all.  You could just steep these, and that would free up space to partial mash more base grain for the fresh malt flavor. 
 
Hmm, might put the crystal malt back down to 80.  Might double the chocolate also.

Grains:

1.5 lb crystal malt 80
.75 lb chocolate malt
.5 lb roasted barley
.25 lb black patent

Extracts:

8.5 lbs light lme (or dme, open to suggestions)

Hops:

1-2 oz cascade (open to suggestions here too, want an IBU between 20-30)

Extras:

1 lb lactose
12 oz chocolate bar, wanting to use 2 77% Chocolove bars (or cocoa powder)

 
I think I'll bump the crystal back down to 1 lb and add a bit of carapils. 

Grains:

.5 lb cara-pils
1 lb crystal malt 80
.75 lb chocolate malt
.5 lb roasted barley
.25 lb black patent

Extracts:

8.5 lbs light lme (or dme, open to suggestions)

Hops:

1-2 oz cascade (open to suggestions here too, want an IBU between 20-30)

Extras:

1 lb lactose
12 oz chocolate bar, wanting to use 2 77% Chocolove bars (or cocoa powder)
 
Yes, it turned out amazing.  Just the right amount of sweet and chocolate.  I did alter the recipe a bit in the final stage and stayed with 12oz of the chocolove 77% bars.  I melted the bars in a cup of water before adding it to the wort with 15 minutes left in the boil.  The chocolate was a bit hard to clean up but I took the advice in the thread and used a plastic primary fermenter to make the cleanup easier.  I did notice that the chocolate absorbed some of the alcohol when I racked it, so it came out a bit less on the ABV but it would have been high to begin with. 

Final recipe:

8oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine
8oz Roasted Barley
16oz Caramel/Crystal 80L
16oz chocolate Malt
16oz Lactose
7 Lbs light malt extract
1oz Cascade at 60 mins
1 Package Safale American US-05
 
I used to premelt my chocolate in a double boiler before stirring it in.  I found it easier just to turn the flame off of the boil pot and add it like a late LME addition.  I just put the candy in and stir it well until it's all melted so it doesn't scorch.  Then I finish the boil.
 
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